A Flattened 'Doll's House' At Mount Gretna Theater Reviews

July 02, 1985|by PAUL WILLISTEIN, The Morning Call

Pshaw! The American Shaw Festival has tampered with a classic, Henrik Ibsen's "A Doll's House." The results are not unenjoyable. In fact, the changes wrought by festival artistic director and founder Bruce Wall are stimulating enough to cause spirited discussion afterward among theatergoers who may or may not agree with the "original reinterpretation .'

Essentially, this is Shavian Ibsen. Wall has rewritten the play Linde. She becomes the catalyst for Nora, who faces her doll's house existence and, once and for all, leaves the shelter and dominance of her husband (and the father before him "who had a trunkful of excuses at the foot of his bed").

At the outset, Wall's reinterpretation was very unsettling and provoked no small amount of anger and confusion in me. Call me a purist, but I like my Bach without synthesizers, my novels before Readers' Digest gets to them, my Shaw Shaw and my Ibsen Ibsen. Call it narrow-minded, conservative or what you will, but I find it extremely irritating when the artistic intent of a classic piece of music, literature or theater has been altered.

In fairness, it must be pointed out that Wall based his interpretation on Shaw's own views and suggestions for "A Doll's House," a play which Shaw greatly admired. So, Wall is remaining true to the spirit of his festival, its theme, "A Summer Celebration of Independence," and history. However, as it stands, the Shaw Festival's "Doll's House" flattens the character of Nora by tidying up, or modernizing, her inner emotional life (which is fascinating precisely because of its complexity) and transforms the play into something akin to a broadside for women's liberation.

Undoubtedly, "A Doll's House" is partly this (especially for its time) and I quite agree with the sentiments of Ibsen. However, "A Doll's House" is so much more and the Shaw Festival production takes this away from us. Essentially, Wall has done our thinking for us.

Wall has apparently directed Sally Mercer to be less the fluttering, bird- like Nora Helmer than the part generally calls for. Her husband Torvald's assessment of her as a "squanderbird," his "little skylark" who must keep a "clean beak" and sound "no false notes" is, it seemed to me, passed over as an aside, a throwawy. Physically, too, Mercer projects a stronger person than one imagines for the role. Her transition from a frail, subservient wife to a strong, independent woman isn't thoroughly convincing, nor does she convey sufficient trauma when her husband discovers her loan forgery.

Again, I think that this toning down of Nora's mercurial personality has as much to do with the script changes as Ms. Mercer's performance. A lot has simply been taken away from Nora. Her motivations are made transparent; her struggle reduced to the sloganeering.

Mrs. Linde is where the focus hasnow been placed and Glynis Bell makes the most of it. Her crisp and engaging manner is well-suited to her role. The scene with Nils Krogstad (William Hardy) is really the centerpiece of the play. Maureen Kenny as Anne-Marie and John Milligan as Dr. Rank round out the cast.

The strength of "A Doll's House" is usually in its third act confrontation, where Torvald (played excellently by the capable Sam Tsoutsouvas) is reduced from "king of the beasts" to a pitiful figure and Nora arouses our sympathy as she shocks us. As it is rewritten here, Tsoutsouvas mainly feeds Ms. Mercer lines, many of them direct quotations from Shaw, including the very one from "Mrs. Warren's Profession" that the Shaw Festival uses on its letterhead.

As the play points out, "even bad lawyers, hack journalists and judges have heart." Nora, though she doesn't have a "conventional heart," has a lot more heart than this production gives her credit for.

"A Doll's House" continues through July 20 at the American Shaw Festival, Mount Gretna. For ticket information and reservations, call 717-964-3627.